Mario 64 and Resident Evil 1 were the first games to blow me away graphically as a kid. I mentioned in the diminishing returns thread that Heavenly Sword was the last game to really wow me compared to what came before it. Nothing this generation has blown me away as games look incrementally better by the year. Maybe Resident Evil 7, not that the graphics were amazing but playing it in VR was pretty incredible.

The last console game to really blow my mind graphically was Uncharted 2 in 2009.

Yeah, that was the one I was going to mention. But mainly because of how much had been improved from the first game in just two years. If I had not played Uncharted 1 first, I probably wouldn't have been as surprised by what I saw. But I still remember being amazed at the trails you could leave while dragging your feet in the snow in the opening sequence for example.

I actually hadn't played Uncharted 1 at the time, though I had seen footage/screens of it online. I'd dabbled in a little Xbox 360 IRL, and been blown away by Gears of War 1 and later very impressed by the likes of Bioshock and Gears 2. Uncharted 2 though, once I saw it firsthand on a friend's PS3, was on a whole 'nother level. The sheer density of detail, the lifelike animations, the scope and complexity of the big action setpieces, it was just astounding.

Nothing since has quite recaptured that feeling, though as I say Metro Exodus PC maxed out and raytraced comes close.

It's not that there haven't been games besides those two in the last decade that impressed me graphically, just nothing else that has really made my jaw hit the floor.

Yeah, that was the one I was going to mention. But mainly because of how much had been improved from the first game in just two years. If I had not played Uncharted 1 first, I probably wouldn't have been as surprised by what I saw. But I still remember being amazed at the trails you could leave while dragging your feet in the snow in the opening sequence for example.

I actually hadn't played Uncharted 1 at the time, though I had seen footage/screens of it online. I'd dabbled in a little Xbox 360 IRL, and been blown away by Gears of War 1 and later very impressed by the likes of Bioshock and Gears 2. Uncharted 2 though, once I saw it firsthand on a friend's PS3, was on a whole 'nother level. The sheer density of detail, the lifelike animations, the scope and complexity of the big action setpieces, it was just astounding.

Nothing since has quite recaptured that feeling, though as I say Metro Exodus PC maxed out and raytraced comes close.

It's not that there haven't been games besides those two in the last decade that impressed me graphically, just nothing else that has really made my jaw hit the floor.

That makes me more curious how I would have reacted to it if I hadn't played Uncharted 1 first. Or perhaps if I had played it earlier.According to my Trophies, I played Final Fantasy XIII and Gran Turismo 5 before Uncharted 2. A friend of mine recommended the series, and lent me the first two games. So I went through Uncharted 1, and then immediately after I played 2. And because of that I can almost only remember thinking of how it compared to the first one. Although there were some moments in 2 that had no equivalent in Uncharted 1 that just impressed me on their own, such as when you use a sniper rifle to shoot down some big towers in the distance that collapse.

Last year I played Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii U gamepad and was blown away by how much better it looked on the small 480P screen than it does on the TV,

The last new game that blew me away visually was The Order 1886. By the time it came out I had pretty much given up on 8th gen games looking so much better than 7th gen games, and Order was the first game that really looked to me like a generational leap from the 360 and PS3. The game may have sucked, but it proved the power of current gen systems like nothing else.

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shikamaru317 said:Probably Anthem's reveal. Of course the game ended up being severely downgraded on release.

It was considerably reduced in visual quality, yes. Was actually ironic, too, given that engine usually produces what it markets, meaning the issue rests solely in the hands of the developers and not a combo of both (as was the case with The Witcher III).

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shikamaru317 said:Probably Anthem's reveal. Of course the game ended up being severely downgraded on release.

It was considerably reduced in visual quality, yes. Was actually ironic, too, given that engine usually produces what it markets, meaning the issue rests solely in the hands of the developers and not a combo of both (as was the case with The Witcher III).

Well, at least Anthem's reveal gave us a sneak peak of what we can expect early next-gen Frostbite games to look like. Same goes for Witcher 3, I suspect that Witcher 4 (which seems to be coming in 2021) will look at least as good as Witcher 3 looked pre-downgrade.

Currently Playing:

It was considerably reduced in visual quality, yes. Was actually ironic, too, given that engine usually produces what it markets, meaning the issue rests solely in the hands of the developers and not a combo of both (as was the case with The Witcher III).

Well, at least Anthem's reveal gave us a sneak peak of what we can expect early next-gen Frostbite games to look like. Same goes for Witcher 3, I suspect that Witcher 4 (which seems to be coming in 2021) will look at least as good as Witcher 3 looked pre-downgrade.

Eh, you will see that those games, even in there pre-released states, will be behind even some early next gen titles. Hell, there are games released, in my eyes, that look better.